The Raleigh City Council's lease of the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus will enable the city to move forward with its plan to reconvert the 325-acre property into an urban park. The city council has agreed to lease the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus from the State of North Carolina for up to 99 years. The lease agreement will be executed by the end of the year. “The plan is the most appropriate way of preserving this open space as a park, while at the same time providing revenue to the state,” Gov. Bev Perdue said in a news release. Under the terms of the agreement, the city will pay the state a rate of $500,000 annually, plus a 1.5 percent yearly increase over the length of the lease term.

by Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

The Raleigh City Council’s lease of the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus will enable the city to move forward with its plan to reconvert the 325-acre property into an urban park.

The city council has agreed to lease the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus from the State of North Carolina for up to 99 years. The lease agreement will be executed by the end of the year.

“The plan is the most appropriate way of preserving this open space as a park, while at the same time providing revenue to the state,” Gov. Bev Perdue said in a news release.

Under the terms of the agreement, the city will pay the state a rate of $500,000 annually, plus a 1.5 percent yearly increase over the length of the lease term. Furthermore, the state Department of Health & Human Services will be allowed to maintain its offices on the Dix campus for up to 15 years.

Supporters of the Dix Park idea have already announced a fundraising effort for the project. Called the “Dix Visionaries”, the group has pledged $3 million in private donations to support the creation of a master plan for the park.

In other news, Slate Properties of Toronto has acquired the Fuquay Crossing shopping center in Fuquay-Varina for $13.1 million. According to the Triangle Business Journal, the company purchased the Kroger-anchored retail center from Jacksonville, Fla.-based Regency Centers Corp.

Located at the intersection of Sunset Lake Road and Broad Street, the 14.5-acre property offers approximately 124,770 square feet of retail space available for lease. The newspaper reports that during this year’s third quarter, the center was 92 percent occupied.

Besides the Kroger grocery store, the property’s other tenants include O2 Fitness, Dollar Tree, After Hours Pub, Assaggio’s Restaurant, AT&T Wireless, Blockbuster Video, Cato, Crazy Glaze, GNC, Hallmark, King Wok and The UPS Store. The sale did not include a number of outparcels owned by retailers like Golden Corral, Smithfield’s Chicken ‘N Bar-B-Q and Bank of America.